Cops: Teen details half-sister's killing

June 16, 2009

A Mokena teenager told police that he cut his 4-year-old half-sister's throat with a steak knife and stabbed her while his younger brother played a wrestling video game upstairs, according to a search warrant affidavit filed by a Mokena detective in Will County Circuit Court.

In a bizarre statement allegedly given to the police, Keith Randulich, 18, confessed to stabbing his half-sister, Sabrina Clement, a few hours after an argument in which his mother refused to buy him a gun, the affidavit said.

Court records say that after the May 22 killing, police removed a bloody carpet from the sub-basement, along with six desktop computers, a collection of horror films and heavy-metal CDs and a rubber clown mask. Police said they also found disturbing writings in the house.

The horrific killing has shocked Mokena, a southwest suburb of about 15,000 people. Randulich, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, is being held in lieu of $10 million bail. He is due back in court Monday.

According to the statement Randulich allegedly gave police, the teen called 911 at 7:54 p.m. on the day of the slaying, then met police at the door, his pants covered in blood.

"It was me," he said in a soft voice, according to the affidavit.

Inside the home in the 19400 block of York Drive, police found drops of blood leading up the carpeted steps from the sub-basement across the white ceramic kitchen floor to a wall-mounted phone with a handset covered in blood. Randulich had called 911 three times after the slaying, saying "come over quick" and "get over here" in two separate calls, the affidavit stated.

The court document said Randulich confessed to taking Clement into the sub-basement, straddling her as she struggled and screamed, and stabbing her.

The Lincoln Way East High School senior, who was a week away from graduation, returned home from school about 3 p.m. and fought with his mother about buying a gun, which he'd recently been licensed to own, the court document said. His parents and 14-year-old brother later left for a school event.

Randulich's 16-year-old brother told police he was upstairs playing a video game, unaware that anything was wrong until he saw flashing police lights through his bedroom window, the affidavit stated. He went downstairs, saw Keith covered in blood and asked, "What did you do?"

Mokena police did not return calls Tuesday. One of Randulich's two public defenders did not return a voice message.

None of Randulich's family attended a May 26 court hearing and his relatives have declined to comment when reached by phone.